Maybe this is the right strategy for Android Wear. I’ve definitely seen some nice Wear 2.0 devices for later this year, and we wouldn’t have this much variety if Google had kept Wear 2.0 close to its chest, much like what Apple does with the Apple Watch. If you don’t like a square watch – and which sane person does? – you’re out of luck on Apple’s side of things.

That being said, none of these have actually come out yet, so I’m not holding my breath on any of them being any good. All I want is an understated, simple smartwatch that doesn’t have all this useless garbage like NFC, Wi-Fi, or LTE sucking up battery. I have my eyes on the LG Watch Style for exactly that reason, but they don’t sell it in The Netherlands.

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I do. You certainly have more display to work with, so seems to me it is objectively superior to a round one. That being the case, can we decide as a society that it’s okay to wear square watches? I mean, who makes those decisions? Is there a fashion czar or something that we can petition so that shallow people who have to be told what to wear will be happy?

My last analog watch was square, I don’t understand all the drama about this, it’s not like Apple invented square watches. At least a round shape is somewhat justified on an analog watch but on a smartwatch where screen estate is limited, a round watch makes no sense at all from a usability standpoint.

To me the Pebble had the right balance. The battery lasted days. You could have square or round, plastic or metal. It didn’t have LTE, NFC, etc, etc, but it worked well. Unfortunately it was killed by Fitbit. It’s funny, they are still selling them at several places. Sigh…goodbye my fun pebble. :{

“All I want is an understated, simple smartwatch that doesn’t have all this useless garbage like NFC, Wi-Fi, or LTE sucking up battery. I have my eyes on the LG Watch Style for exactly that reason, but they don’t sell it in The Netherlands.”

Unfortunately, the simpler LG Style doesn’t regain much in battery life with reduced feature count, it’s still a single day watch.

The first thing after looking for a new watch, was questioning myself how smart the watch should be. I don’t need and want information of social media on my watch. Okay, maybe some information if there is activity but that should be it.

Second, the battery should last long. Lets say a week.

Third. It should look like a watch, not some fancy thing shining and being very modern and state of the art. Because that doesn’t last for long. A watch you can use for years without become old after 6 months.

fourth. It should be able to connect to my phone.

And soon I was looking for the sportive kind of smartwatches, which are waterproof and aimed at heartbeat monitoring, gps, calories, and some information. Even routeplanner! I bought a Suunto. There are many comparable brands. But this looks really like a whatch. I can look at the time without touching screens or buttons. And even while I use it active, the battery last a week.

Not too smart is what the brands might aim at in first instance.

Thinking about it, it should be awesome if movement could charge the battery, inspired by Seiko kinetic.